Hi everyone
Yesterday I was returning home from a trip to Melbourne , when I pulled into the Cranbourne shopping centre area , the one near Thompson Rd ,
and I pulled into the car park next to Red Rooster to grab a bite to eat .
When I left the store and walked back towards the ute I noticed something odd in the background .
There were two bowser like structures there and I just guessed that they were electric car charging stations.
Whether or not you agree with electric cars as there are many pros and cons
I think that they are here to stay for a while ,
But realistically only if consumers around the world continue to buy them .
So any future environmental improvements to them would have to
work in their favour .
On further inspection there were four individual car parking spaces allocated to the area , and two charging stations , each servicing two bays , and they each have both a left and right charge fitting to connect to your car on each bowser quite similar to a petrol bowser.
I pulled out the right one from the first station and took a look at the plug that connects to the vehicle and I saw that it was actually a rather quite a large connector,
I then pulled out the charger from the left hand side and to my surprise I found it was a completely different shaped connector.
Then I noticed that you can clearly see the huge difference in the plugs on the picture and this is displayed in the led display screen .
My first thought was how stupid were the manufactures by not making a single universal plug for use right across the globe , instead of doing what the phone manufacture’s do , and they constantly make new totally different port connections just to sell you new chargers and accessories.
My second thought is what if four of the same type of EVs come to the bay and want to charge at once?
They can’t ,
only two cars with the same charge port can possibly charge up on this set up at once , and realistically on installation of this facility they should have fitted double cables and connectors on each side of the charge station allowing four of either type of vehicles to charge at any one time.
As far as I think about EVs , I don’t think that they are at this point in time , even that environmentally friendly , or exactly the answer to our world transport and emissions problems ,
but i do think that there is ample room for quite a lot of improvement in the engineering and overall design of their concept. And in doing so , creating a situation of the general significant lowering of their carbon footprint and their environmental impact on the earth in both their manufacture and public use .
Once I had a dream that someone quite cleaver , made a small incredible invention, and that would change our future solar power generation , and it would happen to be in the form of tiny microscopic solar cells , that are added into automotive paint and sprayed or dipped onto the exterior of all EVs during the manufacturing process.
This would then allow your EV to actually charge itself all day , and also charge up while you drive ,
as every panel on the vehicle is now a solar panel , and because the new solar cells would also be light sensitive, technically your car would also recharge charge itself at night time ,
under a streetlight or even a full moon , or in a lit parking bay.
I think this would be a massive step forward for the electric car industry and bring it in line with the public’s future environmental expectations , and this would also have a wide ranging applications in other areas , like for an example exterior paint applied on the exterior walls of buildings and houses , that then is hooked directly into your solar system or stand alone battery or directly straight into the grid .
As battery technology also improves this solar concept would allow much smaller and lighter batteries to be installed in vehicles because of the constant charge being generated by the vehicle’s paint ,and then with the lighter vehicle weight it would also be a lot more economically beneficial and it would automatically improve the efficiency and mileage of the vehicle and also do things like reduce your tire wear , and of course lessen the impact and wear
upon the roads.
Somehow we as a race need to get smarter in lots of things we do , sometimes I guess that good ideas can be beneficial to the environment , the people and also profitable to the companies that invest the time , money and resources in to developing new ideas and ensure us a bright future .
Cheers
Curlyg